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I know I should have written this up sooner, but I've spent the last week with my husband, and doing more minor things like trying to reclaim my house after leaving the men to turn it into a bachelor pad for three months.
Quick summary: Three weeks and one day, 4048 miles, and I refuse to count how much in avgas later, N69V is now at her new home in Lebanon, TN.
After several shakedown flights to work out wing rigging (and install a new starter - at least it bit the dust before I left!), the weather turned lousy while I was trying to get practice cross-countries in. Here are the great days:
Finally, I was happy with pilot's performance as well as airplane, and weather cooperated. I took off with a friend escorting me to the border in his 182. (He'd had an annual lasting a year while I'd been rebuilding the plane, and set flying with me as a dream and goal for when his plane was done.)
Gassed at Gulkana, dodged a couple eagles on a thermal, a thunderstorm, turbulence and some rain through Mentasta pass. At Tok, got the phone number for one of my buddies in ground school who made it through commercial and is now flying for 40-mile air. Unfortunately, he was out getting groceries with no phone on him, so I only got to catch up with his lovely lady.
Landed at Northway and filled the tanks from Jerry cans, hugged goodbye to friends, filed a flight plan, and took off inbetween rain showers and rainbows to Beaver Creek.
The ceiling came down over Beaver Creek, and the airport was buttoned up for the night, but Customs was surprisingly friendly and easy to deal with. Set up my tent under my wing, though I couldn't get any perchase for the stakes in the hardpacked ground. Learned that the new wings make great drums with every raindrop.
The next morning, waited on weather, and on the advice of the local community airport radio service guy, took off down the highway despite a rather unpromising drizzling ceiling. It got lower and lower, and I kept a wheel right over the highway as I planned to land on it if things got too bad for me. I'm not sure how far above the construction workers I was, but it was low enough that they looked up and waved... Then about twenty miles out, the rain stopped and the ceiling shot up to 4000 as I came out of a wall of bad weather.
Landed at Burwash and poured in the last of my reserve fuel, then headed into Whitehorse as my radio battery was running out of steam. So you know: there is a pilot gazebo where you can camp on the Whitehorse airport. Not knowing that, I hung around the terminal and recharged my GPS and radio, then slept at the Robert Service campground down in town. Hey, it had hot showers, so I'm not complaining.
Took off late the next morning, as a friend showed up with his son in tow. After a little turbulence on the last flight with Daddy, someone was scared of airplanes and trying to fling himself away from it - but after long enough, curiosity won out. When I finally left, he had to be pried out of the cockpit.
Heading south past Marsh Lake,
Refueled at Teslin, and stopped to chat with a currently wingless mechanic who had hustled across the highway when he'd heard my plane coming in. Rain started closing in as I made it to Watson Lake, bringing gusty winds to the airport. I skipped the five-star camping at the gazebo by the lake in favor of the mosquito-free pilot lounge couch, though I did spend time that evening with two wonderful gents in their 182 who were camped out there.
The next day, I refueled and got out just as another rain storm sent a strong gust front across the airport (run-up was interesting.) Once away from the mountains in the middle of the valley, life was much better.
When I got to Liard Hot Springs (busiest-looking "closed" airport I've ever seen), I decided to press on and take the Liard River Canyon instead of stopping or following the highway to Fort Nelson, as the former path was clear and the latter socked in with rain clouds. (If you think you're noticing a weather theme here, just wait. It gets worse.)
Canyon was impressive, but I was pretty busy managing updrafts and downdrafts, and not much free time for pictures. Then I broke out of the mountains along the toad river, and had to dodge heavy rainshowers and come into Fort Nelson from the south.
Quick summary: Three weeks and one day, 4048 miles, and I refuse to count how much in avgas later, N69V is now at her new home in Lebanon, TN.
After several shakedown flights to work out wing rigging (and install a new starter - at least it bit the dust before I left!), the weather turned lousy while I was trying to get practice cross-countries in. Here are the great days:
Finally, I was happy with pilot's performance as well as airplane, and weather cooperated. I took off with a friend escorting me to the border in his 182. (He'd had an annual lasting a year while I'd been rebuilding the plane, and set flying with me as a dream and goal for when his plane was done.)
Gassed at Gulkana, dodged a couple eagles on a thermal, a thunderstorm, turbulence and some rain through Mentasta pass. At Tok, got the phone number for one of my buddies in ground school who made it through commercial and is now flying for 40-mile air. Unfortunately, he was out getting groceries with no phone on him, so I only got to catch up with his lovely lady.
Landed at Northway and filled the tanks from Jerry cans, hugged goodbye to friends, filed a flight plan, and took off inbetween rain showers and rainbows to Beaver Creek.
The ceiling came down over Beaver Creek, and the airport was buttoned up for the night, but Customs was surprisingly friendly and easy to deal with. Set up my tent under my wing, though I couldn't get any perchase for the stakes in the hardpacked ground. Learned that the new wings make great drums with every raindrop.
The next morning, waited on weather, and on the advice of the local community airport radio service guy, took off down the highway despite a rather unpromising drizzling ceiling. It got lower and lower, and I kept a wheel right over the highway as I planned to land on it if things got too bad for me. I'm not sure how far above the construction workers I was, but it was low enough that they looked up and waved... Then about twenty miles out, the rain stopped and the ceiling shot up to 4000 as I came out of a wall of bad weather.
Landed at Burwash and poured in the last of my reserve fuel, then headed into Whitehorse as my radio battery was running out of steam. So you know: there is a pilot gazebo where you can camp on the Whitehorse airport. Not knowing that, I hung around the terminal and recharged my GPS and radio, then slept at the Robert Service campground down in town. Hey, it had hot showers, so I'm not complaining.
Took off late the next morning, as a friend showed up with his son in tow. After a little turbulence on the last flight with Daddy, someone was scared of airplanes and trying to fling himself away from it - but after long enough, curiosity won out. When I finally left, he had to be pried out of the cockpit.
Heading south past Marsh Lake,
Refueled at Teslin, and stopped to chat with a currently wingless mechanic who had hustled across the highway when he'd heard my plane coming in. Rain started closing in as I made it to Watson Lake, bringing gusty winds to the airport. I skipped the five-star camping at the gazebo by the lake in favor of the mosquito-free pilot lounge couch, though I did spend time that evening with two wonderful gents in their 182 who were camped out there.
The next day, I refueled and got out just as another rain storm sent a strong gust front across the airport (run-up was interesting.) Once away from the mountains in the middle of the valley, life was much better.
When I got to Liard Hot Springs (busiest-looking "closed" airport I've ever seen), I decided to press on and take the Liard River Canyon instead of stopping or following the highway to Fort Nelson, as the former path was clear and the latter socked in with rain clouds. (If you think you're noticing a weather theme here, just wait. It gets worse.)
Canyon was impressive, but I was pretty busy managing updrafts and downdrafts, and not much free time for pictures. Then I broke out of the mountains along the toad river, and had to dodge heavy rainshowers and come into Fort Nelson from the south.
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